Oshiba
by Flying Faraway
Summary: Based on an alternative outcome of the events in chapter 483. The composition of the following story centers on Sakura's ordeal regarding her feelings for Sasuke and right choices. Warning! Grotesque violence, mind games, and shocking revelations.
1. Prologue

**Summary:** Based on an alternative outcome of the events in chapter 483. Unfortunately, Kakashi appeared at the scene a little bit later, while Madara decided to check on his unstable charge earlier. Is it even possible for a kunoichi to survive the predicament of being at the mercy of two unbalanced Uchiha?

The composition of the following story centers on Sakura's ordeal regarding her feelings for Sasuke, maturation and right choices. Grotesque violence, mind games, disgusting revelations. You've been warned.

**Rewritten and reposted. **

* * *

_**Oshiba***_

* * *

_Stab through my heart, and kill yourself in it._

* * *

**Prologue: ****A poisoned serpent covered all with flowers***

* * *

Oh, silly girl, why try a see-through act?

And surely fail for you have to fight

The discord of the mind and heart.

* * *

"Sasuke-kun, I've made up my mind! I'm abandoning Konohagakure. I've come to join you!" she stated clearly, pouring desperate confidence in her soprano and assessing their respective positions.

The kunoichi didn't sneak up to him deliberately, she simply showed herself to the former teammate, at the same time choosing the advantage of standing on an eminence to preserve some distance for good measure. Sakura opted to stay aloof and define the object of her improvised "mission" without mixing her personal matters with the planning, or else… it would be a predetermined fiasco.

She noticed that he looked quite worn out and tattered as if the man had just crossed the Forest of Death on a stormy night. More than that, there was the detached air of exhaustion and loneliness around him, not counting a vaguely familiar "pile" of jumbled clothes, flesh and bright hair at his feet. Haruno considered whether their tête-à-tête could be called a true blessing or an artful trap in the broader sense. Nevertheless, she should convince him of her "genuine intentions" by approaching the outlaw. Sakura directed a portion of chakra in her legs and swiftly leapt from the wall, landing hard on the ground, approximately fifteen meters away from Uchiha. She had to straighten herself with an additional effort: it felt like the pull of the earth had doubled or the gravity of his glare was the force she had to surmount.

"Why, all of a sudden? Is that really what you seek, Sakura?" he drawled with the evident suspicion in his flat baritone, then narrowed his passionless calculating eyes: "Why should I, a missing nin, believe you?"

Summoning all her acting skills, she remained still, partly because it seemed to be too early for closing in, partly because she feared for her own resolve, which had proved to be more fragile than she would have liked to admit. Sakura preferred to attribute the rise of anxiety and the beads of sweat, dripping from her forehead, to the natural answer to a highly venturesome situation and not to a worry of another kind.

"I have no ulterior motive. I've always regretted not going with you!" Sakura cried with a pleading expression on her face, resting upon a half-truth.

It was the first time he starred at her with some strange emotion, she could not decipher. As if Sasuke Uchiha had finally saw her in front of him or was he searching for a loving phantom from their shared past in the present young woman? Before he could compare her older version with the girl from his memories and draw an unfavorable sad conclusion…

"I'll do whatever it takes for you to accept me. No more regrets!" she pressed on, hoping to appear more persuasive.

"_I'll do whatever it takes for you to accept me…" _an echo of a hidden recollection mocked her lack of sincerity and gave birth to a resonating tightness in her chest, where she had been touching with her glowed palm.

"Do you even know my current target?" Uchiha inquired, frowning because of a bitter realization.

"I've said "whatever it takes". I'll follow any of your orders," Sakura repeated her oath dutifully, spreading her hands and welcoming his reply.

"To wipe Konoha off the map, that is my goal," he simply proclaimed and watched with an ambiguous satisfaction her immediate reaction.

Sakura was staggered by the horrible confession and how easy and exciting he made it sound, like an executioner who let the blade of the guillotine fall, cruelly cutting those feeble ties. Common sense clicked inside her, and she regained her composure.

"Are you willing to betray your precious home for me?" Sasuke attempted at piercing through her façade.

"Yes, I am. If you wish so," she agreed, emphasizing every word, her tongue felt like it was fully filled with lead.

"Hmph… prove it", he demanded sharply, slightly tilting his head. "Dispose of that" Sasuke shot the "second arrow", gesturing with amusement to his wounded accomplice. "And I'll gladly grant you a chance."

He observed her intently: his former comrade's face was sculptured in a grim surprise, as he had anticipated. Then his attention shifted to the kunai, which was thrust out the folds of her light cloak. She was gripping it too tight.

"Who is she?" Sakura asked, eyeing the hapless "rag doll".

"A useless member of "Hawk", a former group of mine," the missing nin clarified nonchalantly and added with an indifferent expedience, "You're a medical ninja, aren't you? You can attend on me as a replacement for this woman."

"_How heartless! There's no trace of the old Sasuke-kun I used to admire. Such a drastic change," _she diagnosed inwardly, recognizing the fatal disease to her utter terror.

"Well? You're hesitating. Can you handle such a dirty task?" he challenged, instantly reminding Sakura about her initial mission and his constant condescension and doubt about her competence.

She began walking slowly. With each step her will was crumbling. At last she reached her dangerous destination and he maneuvered to the side, seemingly to allow her to carry out his order.

"_The redhead… she doesn't matter. As long as I… if I…" _the Konoha chunin shuddered and mentally prepared to erase the existence of a defenseless foe if needed, pushing away the thought of being the one, lying there, in the dust, with no means to avoid the horrible fate.

"_If I manage to slash him first, I'll spare her and free myself and Naruto from that cursed promise,"_ Sakura tried to save herself from the suffocating guilt.

She screwed up her eyes in a cowardly fashion and braced herself for the upcoming death blow.

"Sasuke, don't!" she suddenly heard a hoarse scream from below and swiftly whirled around.

She wasn't the one delivering the death blow. Her world stopped, bleached by the azure flash.

"Madara…" her deathgod snarled threateningly. And she found herself shielded by a screen of a black sky with crimson clouds, "rescued" by an unlikely figure.

"That is the wrong way to treat such a fair maiden, Sasuke-kun," the Akatsuki buffon, Tobi (if she wasn't mistaken), reprimanded Sasuke in a sing-song voice. Then his tone changed completely, dropping the carefree high-pitched manner: "Your impulsiveness bothers me. I'm sure I've told you to get rid of the other female." He turned to her and she jumped away from the delusive orange mask. "Sakura-chan here may serve us a purpose. Or rather, several purposes…"

* * *

_*means "dried flowers"; herbarium is the exact opposite of ikebana ("living flowers") _

_*__a line, extracted from Walter Raleigh's poem "A Farewell to False Love"_


	2. Chapter One

**Author's Note: **_I'm done with the outline of the story (hurray!) and have generated a believable _dénouement_ (classical, but somewhat twisted; its "uniqueness" can be subjected to a dispute for everything had been thought up before us). I've tried to make this chapter a little bit more eventful, as far as dramas go. Also, I have clear doubts about my knowledge regarding the military medicine code (I couldn't find somewhat resembling law practice), so bear with my imagination and common sense. And Sakura, let's see, in a way, I've emphasized her selfish, reckless, venturesome side (the stubborn Haruno, who doesn't pin her current hopes on allies) and the (cap)ability of rational thinking (the tactic type), she naturally possesses. About Karin, I actually sympathize with her situation and I've strived to find a compromise course, but my plot structure is being demanding. Madara… I'm still hesitating in his portrait and Sasuke… Sasuke needs some serious therapy… ah, truthful jokes aside, he has been lost since his childhood and, for the past years, has been asking wrong strangers for the right directions and copying someone else's behavioral patterns (the best role models being Kakashi and Itachi, before the massacre). He seeks more after someone to admire and not after someone who admires him. So infantile, monochromic, and conflicting in the interpersonal department. Besides, my English (unlike my Russian) lacks in the originality, finesse, and deftness, I'm sooo self-critical, rereading every passage: errors and banality. I'm blabbing… sorry. _

* * *

**Chapter One: ****The Flow of Petals Drenched in Venom**

* * *

Evaded one snake and stepped on another,

Girl, you should have listened better

To your father and mother.

* * *

"_Sakura-chan here may serve us a purpose. Or rather, several purposes…" _

"_Purposes…"_ Sakura repeated to herself with apprehension, sensing the nauseating aftertaste of the recent development and switching her focus from the nearly fatal mistake.

She could hardly afford losing self-control for good because of the unexpected Uchiha's "blitzkrieg". "_What sort of_ _purposes..?"_ she questioned her newly arrived (or, in his case, emerged) adversary's motives, while re-evaluating the odds and voluntary suppressing a persistent quiver in her right hand, to which she had paid no heed until the kunoichi felt her fingers crushing against the rigid handle of the kunai. "_Whatever… I'd rather descend into the pits of Jyashin's hell, and drag this damned pair along with me…_" Sakura narrowed her eyes in disdain and frustration, watching the two criminals controvert.

"I'm not in the right mood for your spontaneous whims and mannerisms. Sparing her now would guarantee more petty hindrances in the future, not benefits," the younger man retorted. "The incompetent Konoha pawn has been meaning to assassinate the "renegade" from the start by attempting at manipulating the non-existent attachments," he spat, grazing with his glare the tense figure behind Madara. "It would be only fair to demonstrate the grave consequences of underestimating me to those desperate fools, who sent her."

She flinched inwardly from the striking insight. She wasn't Sakura Haruno for him anymore, having been irreversibly stereotyped and transferred to the hostile category of THOSE. The astute intuition was rustling to its mistress that Uchiha hadn't been bluffing about the major genocide project. Sakura, in her turn, referred several times to the former fellow-villager as "a missing nin" which implied the derogatory status of being a vile and disgraceful man, a degenerate. Generalization and formalization were the sharp scalpel and retractor that had smoothly slit their past liaisons and ultimately separated the two apart. When did the scale pan, filled with the reasons to slay, outweigh other oaths and promises? Sakura pursed her lips and simply justified herself: she had to protect her nearest and dearest, while he… he was a corrupted hatred-driven killer. And she would stop his further contamination, even if she had to tarnish her own consciousness. Indeed, love in this world looked distorted, twisted, adopting many misshapen faces, being reflected in the shards of their broken glass souls. Negating the dim wrongness of her radical arguments, she slammed the door in front of the doubt and resumed scheming. The kunoichi had rapidly counted the limits and possibilities on the abacus of her mind, and resigned to the unconsoling conclusion: the design of their demise presupposed a single endeavor and included her imminent death as well. At once, Sakura had brushed aside the no-win idea of retreat and the option of stabbing herself with the poisoned kunai. That would have prevented her from the divulgence of the combat intelligence, perhaps, but she was far from being the naïve genin, fully aware of the implications: a thorough scavenging of the corpse would be more than enough to mock such a pointless sacrifice. Moreover, it sounded too pacifistic and craven. Then again, she was not a neophyte; it was only clever to come to the "rendezvous" with the undeniable prodigy, hiding a few tricks up the sleeve, or, better to say, under her cape.

"Don't be so touchy, Sasuke-kun. And kindly think above the little grudge against someone usable," Tobi-Madara waved away the objections. He seemed too careless and cryptic about the whole matter. And Haruno perfectly knew why the rascal could enjoy the privilege of preaching Sasuke and leaving his rear unguarded. "Such fastidiousness won't improve our situation."

The inflamed Uchiha must have snapped in reply, but it was not the pinnacle of her concern. Having measured by sight the distance between her and the intended target and identified the rock beneath her soles as limestone, she mentally projected the trajectory and remembered the exact number of the explosive tags, enhanced with the specially embedded plumbeous chips and fastened securely to her lining. Sakura could not escape this daring gamble, the adrenaline rushed violently through her vessels and her muscles eagerly contracted in anticipation, when she began charging her fists, concealed by cloak, with an enormous portion of chakra. Haruno actually pitied the "Ginger", who would be also buried. She prayed to the Holy Fire that her first move would serve as a diversion for the akatsuki, who was standing quite fortunately between her and Sasuke's sharingan, and an efficient trap for the latter, while the second attack, accelerated by the weight of her body, would be fast enough to rule out the alternative of dodging. Ironically, Sakura Haruno used to indulge in the romantic fantasies of embracing her beloved and tragically dying… but not under such dubious conditions.

"So, Sakura-chan…" the playful incognito boldly swung around, directly addressing the deceptively confused kunoichi.

Haruno grinned wryly, dropped the kunai with an eerie clang and punched the cracked calcareous plates with both hands. The slabs underneath her knuckles, like a fragile terra-cotta bowl, instantly pulverized into debris, the collision traced a delta-shaped web of clefts and fissures; the stage shook and moaned, then rumbled, and the ground burst like a huge jigsaw puzzle. The mini earthquake engendered a cuneate crevice. A half-second later Sakura, having already loaded her shins and sensorium with more chakra, propelled herself from the crumbling stone and leapt forward in order to pinpoint the aim of the "kamikaze phase". With peripheral vision, she spotted the masked silhouette who was comically balancing on a piece of rock, as if testing his equilibrium sense for fun. Then she swept past the injured one, who faintly shrieked and motionlessly slid down a slope like a sack. Finally, there was Uchiha straight ahead of her, a very-very disgruntled Uchiha, caught between the massive fragments, up to his waist. The kunoichi strained and pushed herself from the flank of the artificial ravine, savagely pounced on him and clung to his torn kosode with a stranglehold, her split nails stuck in the rough, damp flax. She could feel the erratic palpitation of both their hearts; his was banging persistently on her middle phalanxes, while Sakura's was pounding loudly in her ears, after all she resembled a ticking time-bomb.

He gave his captor a bewildered look, which quickly shifted to an angered razor-glare, and hissed imperatively, "Let go of me…"

"No," she firmly answered in a peremptory whisper.

"_Forgive me, Naruto, everyone…"_

Sakura leaned closer to Sasuke, brushing his warm slick cheek with hers, and triggered their shared end.

A pure white flash.

Greedily swallowed by nothingness.

* * *

The darkness still roamed in the soporous consciousness, crowded by the wildly swaying round dance of dull lilac and cobalt shadows. The abrupt shouts nearby fished her out of the opaque trench of numbness and stupor.

"Sakuraaa..." an explicitly familiar baritone called out for her, being saturated with the evident concern in spite of the insignificant modulations.

"_Ka… kashi… sen… sei,_" she identified its owner, stretching out the elementary thought, attempting to understand why… no, how the captain had contrived to invade the realm of her afterlife.

"_Is he also…"_

"Sakura-chaaaan!" a strident alto repeated the name, her name, softened with the affectionate suffix. "Damn it, this site is smashed", she heard the voice complain anxiously and utter habitually: "Taju kage bunshin no jutsu".

"_It's… Naruto,_" somehow, that occurrence didn't surprise his teammate in the least for his omnipotence had been recently established during the devastating invasion of Pain.

"_Wait, if it's Naruto… the idiot, who is practically shinigamiproof, am I…_" she mused incoherently, unraveling the tangle of the obscure discoveries.

"I'll summon my ninken," Kakashi replied, not far from the object of their search.

Sakura harkened to the chorus of barks, the hubbub of commands, and the march of treads. She unlocked her eyes agonizingly slowly as if the eyelids had been forged together for a century, at first, noticing to her absolute amazement that she was on the surface of the ground, moreover, hovering in the air and feeling lighter than a snowflake. Out of sheer panic, she awkwardly moved towards the pillar her mentor was, attempting at walking… and floated instead. Haruno Sakura shrieked… and no one heard the harrowing scream with the exception of her and a single crow which fearfully altered its course of flying.

"I'm… a ghost," and it was her second disturbing observation: no feet, no ankles… only a weird specter's tail. "A ghost, a restless spirit!" she exclaimed, surveying her new ethereal contours in dismay.

"Here, underneath this conglomeration of rocks," a sandy dog, wearing black glasses growled and specified: "The barely distinguishable, mixed scents of two females…"

"Females? Mixed? What about Uchiha? We should share the tomb… no, the creep couldn't… an upgraded replacement technique… or genjutsu. Did I get his half-dead accomplice instead?! I refuse to accept the fact that I perished in vain!" the kunoichi roared in vexation like a wounded tigress which foolishly let the prey slip through her claws. "Who am I kidding, it was too easy…" she signed, regretting the inability to lessen her ire physically.

"Good job, Akino!" its master commented and signaled one of the blonds to shift.

Without delay, the imposing brigade of clones almost threw themselves on the bloodhound and began excavating at a marvelous speed. Akino sprang aside and ran up to Kakashi to give a total report to the jounin, who paled considerably after acquiring the additional information.

"Don't… don't…" Sakura was now pleading helplessly with her savers to stop… stop, before the ugly truth would be uncovered. "Please… please don't'!"

"Naruto, whatever we encounter down there, you have to stay calm… and obey my orders," Kakashi warned the original, his visible eye being downcast and avoiding contact with the youngster.

"Why…" Uzumaki asked, heaving one of the boulders in the sage mode, "are you telling me this?"

"_Why would he deny the barely lingering traces of my chakra?" _

Why? Maybe, because she could hardly believe it herself.

"Naruto, Sakura…" the war-hardened jounin couldn't pluck up his courage to deliver the deplorable verdict.

"Sakura-chan is all right. She's Sakura-chan… I have faith in her," the genin interrupted him and smiled wearily, yet reassuringly.

At the same time a clone climbed out of a dimple, he approached the two and gently pulled something out of his bosom, speechlessly handing over his finding to Naruto. The foreboding quiet blanketed them, while her confused friend was starring at the singed metal tablet on his palm.

"It belongs to Sakura-chan…" he murmured, clenching the bent hitayate, and demanded: "Where is she?"

"We were afraid to raise her body by ourselves… she's in a… very bad condition," the clone reluctantly croaked and wiped the sweat from his brow.

Before Kakashi could protest, dreading his protégé's collapse, Naruto had dispersed the digger and Sakura witnessed her teammate fall on all fours, trembling, like an autumn aspen leaf. He must have experienced everything at once, knocked down by the disgusting images of the burnt and squashed cadaver, mutilated beyond recognition. Their captain sank to his knees too and placed his hands firmly on Naruto's shivering shoulders to steady him.

"Sakura-chan… dead… blew… her… herself up," the precious boy, her everlasting little sun, she grew to cherish and admire, stuttered like a broken barrel organ, through sobs, cradling the hitayate to his chest.

She darted toward the pair, cursing her sluggishness, and hugged Naruto from behind… in futile attempts to grasp the depressed arch of his form for her arms passed through his back like water through a net.

"I'm sorry, Naruto… so sorry, I messed up…" Sakura prayed feverishly for him not to be eclipsed by the beast.

She wished for his crying to subside and his anguish to abate, but no brilliant mind had ever succeeded in inventing an actual "anesthetic drug" to assuage such an ache, only Time could prognosticate the "patient's" destiny. And as invisible minutes seeped away, she saw his shudders halve, he sat up in a stiff pose and wistfully caressed with his calloused thumb the half-erased insignia of Konoha, the symbol of all those joyful and gloomy, adventurous and boring, pleasant and upsetting, ferial and festal days they spent together.

Then she heard the wailing sounds: a whimpering Akamaru laid its bulky snout on Naruto's lap; there stood Kiba, who was pulling his shaggy hair, his bared canines tearing the lower lip, and Lee, stripped of the youthful shine and wringing one hand with another till his bones were ringingly crackling. Sai… was trying to carry out Kakashi's instructions and paint three falcons, but even if the brush did mechanically stroke the paper, the tears, which he defined as strange "eye-precipitations", kept spoiling the lines.

* * *

The five ninjas' foreheads kissed the carpet of Haruno's living room, not daring to look at her parents' grief-stricken expressions. Her mother staggered and nearly fainted and then started weeping loudly, her always self-disciplined optimistic father, stoically supporting his wife, didn't spare their unexpected visitors a second glance and dryly asked them to leave the house.

"Darling, you shouldn't cry so noisily, our baby-girl won't be able to rest in peace," the grizzled man mumbled absently.

Sakura smiled sadly, watching, through the window her Dad's clumsy consolations and her Mom's puffy lacklustre eyes. She remembered the silly ideas, in which she found a sadistic comfort after the particularly heated arguments with the parents. Sakura used to imagine in details how deeply they would regret the untimely decease of their only pink pearl and all that annoying fussing over the stubborn daughter's faults. Now it was her who regretted being an ungrateful selfish child.

The grey thick-clouded morning and the black mourning attire of the funeral contrasted with the snow-white roses, lilies and chrysanthemums, made in luxuriant wreaths (Ino's generosity, Sakura presumed), and the assembled chalky faces of her relatives, friends and colleagues, constrained by remorse and conventions. She could suffocate from the somber atmosphere: it was the heavy combination of the saccharine flower fragrance, the smell of cemeterial soil and the sickly odor of blame. She wandered away as soon as her parents and Shizune began discussing the proper epitaph.

* * *

The ghost of Haruno Sakura needed Naruto Uzumaki, she needed to be sure that the knucklehead would not wallow in self-condemnation or babble dereistic promises. Finally, the moment Sakura spotted the bright golden "lamp" at the base of the Memorial, she wanted to preach its imbecile owner who could attract pneumonia, drowsing on the cold wet marble. She determinedly floated forward, noticing that her teammate was idly tracing by turns the spiral patterns of both her and Sasuke's hitayate with the tip of his forefinger. Sakura didn't like him being so compulsive and pitiful.

"Naruto!" she boomed, hoping against reason that she would be able to evoke a response.

"Naruto-kun," someone, behind Sakura, hailed him delicately.

"Hinata?" Sakura knew that only Hyuga heiress possessed such a melodious soprano of a crystal bell.

"I… I should have returned to Konoha with her when she asked," he hoarsely replied, not lifting his head, and continued the monologue, stumbling, "That day I said to her that I hated people who lied to themselves… I conceitedly thought that Sakura-chan… Sakura-chan did not mean those words… I underestimated her resolution and denied her because I was afraid of being hurt, because I always judge others by my own standards… I never understood Sakura-chan's complex feelings… she went… and… tried to confront Sasuke by herself. I should have protected Sakura-chan, but I lost her… it's all my fault… my fault, Sakura-chan…" he choked on his tearful confession.

"No, Naruto! You're wrong! Hinata, if you love him, tell him, please, convince Naruto that it was my idiotic choice, hit him on that cast-iron crown of his and forbid my friend to blame himself for my death… or I… I'll be haunting his apartment until he gives up on regretting…"

"_**Snap out of it, girl!"**_ a sudden acrid voice penetrated through the haze of sorrow and the turbulent torrent of self-accusations, being accompanied with a tangible flick on her forehead and a gap in the canvas of the vicious factuality.

The surrounding colors and shapes started turning flat, factitious, and foreign, static, and reminiscent of all those illustrations in her childhood novels.

* * *

"_Snap out of it! We shall cancel the stupid mire!_" that perky Voice belonged to her inner helpmate, the adviser who had been silent for three lonely years, and she had conjectured that the formidable part had merged gradually with her core completely.

The anomalous flow of Haruno's chakra was stalled by a mental dam, breaking the excruciating sequence and proficiently cutting the film of the horrendous drama. The duet agreed that she had been overpaying for the lachrymose show.

She was lying sprawled on her stomach, panting, shivering because of the chilling earth breath. Out of instinct the kunoichi reached for the woolen outerwear, but the hand slipped off her exposed forearm. The poisoned weapon was out of her grasp too. She scanned the lower area and detected her cape, which was covering the lifeless figure of that red-haired woman like a shroud. Sakura squinted and saw the tiny pool of yellowish foam and the violet tinge of the nails and crooked fingers.

"_They must have used my kunai," _the sickening realization had awoke the kunoichi completely, alarmed, she struggled to pick herself up.

"Attagirl! Now, I'm even more intrigued. Such a fragile blossom managed to dispel one of my most special hateshinai muen no genjutsu and beat the previous record," exclaimed the towering Orange Mask in feigned excitement.

"_There are no signs of the mass destruction, the place is intact. Most probably, the akatsuki masterly got me the very moment I laid my eyes on his figure. So he has switched from the clownish performances to circus hypnotist's tricks," Sakura_ deduced and debated with herself whether she should be more cautious around the wicked akatsuki or Uchiha with his maniacal ideology and swelling of misanthropy.

Speaking of the devil spawn, he was busily winding the chakra threads round his wrist and ignoring her.

"_**Sting that arrogant bastard!"**_ Inner Sakura provoked her and she complied to their mutual pleasure.

"Thanks. Once I was even told that my analytical skills and illusionary techniques expertise were the best in the squad,*" she parried sardonically the unnecessary compliment.

"Hn," her former teammate snorted, at last, joining the chit-chat game.

"Believe it or not, I earned the praise from an Uchiha who suffers from a peculiar selective amnesia," Sakura laughed and smirked triumphantly when she caught the slight twitch in his atrophied mime.

"You fully deserved it then for you got the approval from the two remaining members of our ill-starred clan," the akatsuki revealed the surprising piece of news and added after a short pause, "Let us reacquaint, Sakura Haruno. My name is Madara Uchiha and I would like to request your assistance in the medical field."

"What!" Sakura gasped like a fish. She obviously anticipated that the other party had planned to take her as a hostage and primitively threaten the kyuubi jinchuuriki with his friend's well-being. More than that, two vengeful wielders of sharingan were standing in front of her.

"Madara Uchiha? The adversary, who fought the Senju leader for the title of the first Hokage, and perished?" Haruno, having always been an excellent student with a retentive memory, recalled the dusty historical battle without any trouble.

"The one and only!" the patriarch of the clan confirmed. "But I'll answer all your questions later if you deign to become the honorable guest of my modest shelter and perform a surgery on Sasuke-kun. His blindness is progressing quickly, and only transplantation can prevent the ill-fated end. I would have done it myself, but I'm a dilettante, while you have undergone a superb training under the renowned expert. Also, I'm certain that professional monitoring after the operation should increase the rates of recuperation. Three days and you'll be free like a sparrow, Sakura-chan…" he finished, waiting patiently for her decision. The other Uchiha yet again scoffed brusquely, demonstrating his contempt for Madara's initiative.

Her primary intention was to decline for it was considered a treachery according to the fifth paragraph of the general shinobi code. But as a medic she once pledged to help any unfortunate person that asked for the treatment. The last humanistic virtue often contradicted with the strict military medicine regulations, such as healing only those wounded who had a large potential of recovery; being the interlacement of a shinobi and a medic nin implied the eternal conflict between the duties and values of entirely parallel kind. Sakura remembered Tsunade's lessons regarding ethical issues and the upsetting didactic story, involving Orochimaru, from which she drew an analogy with her dilemma. The kunoichi preferred not to get in her shishou's high-heels, but the cruel gods arranged otherwise. No matter what, the people of Konoha were the most important priority. Every pupil of the academy was taught that the advantage of the leafage abundance was to be used as a natural camouflage. She would force the luck to fight on her side; she would exploit all her skills to the fullest and escape the blind-alley.

"_That would be my second chance; I should not miss such a rich opportunity… anyway, I will immediately follow her unhappy lot if I try to resist,"_ she settled the further track, eyeing the fractured marionette.

"It's a deal then! My assistance for your information," the chunin answered in a half-hesitant, half-positive tone, imitating the pangs of consciousness.

"_I shall deceive and lie to myself and everyone else for you, Naruto," _Sakura thought, locking the impervious emerald of her eyes with Sasuke's bottomless orbs. She carefully discarded her hitayate, putting it away in the back pouch. The loose cyclamen strands of hair fell on Sakura's cheekbones, making her feminine features appear sharper. _"I guess I'll die another day"._

"Wonderful, Sakura-chan! Now hurry up. Our poor Zetsu should have exhausted himself by this minute," Madara motioned for the youngsters to come closer, and with a wave of his sleeve Sakura Haruno, in the scandalous company of two notorious Uchiha, vanished into familiar obscurity.

* * *

The captain and his subordinate landed simultaneously on the brim of the wall with a various degree of gracefulness and surveyed the now passive scene, both feeling the same uneasiness.

"_That unit was purposefully sent to distract us… and defer our arrival. Most likely, they captured her",_ the grey-haired jounin mused to himself and clenched his fist. "_First, Sasuke, then Sakura… Obito, Rin, I sinned too much and have been cursed. As long as the two of them are alive, there's still hope… maybe… I'm too pessimistic." _

"There she is!" shouted the blond, noticing the cream cloak with the chestnut stripes, and flung himself to his teammate's aid but the captain's hand swiftly caught the impulsive genin by the collar. Naruto always behaved too hasty for his own good.

"Don't be reckless. That's a classical trap, the Innocent mine," Kakashi stated, basing on the reliable combination of his experience, intuition and sharingan."During the Third Great Shinobi War one of the most favorite barbarian ruses was to stuff a corpse or a dummy, which bore the resemblance to a fallen ally, with an impressive amount of explosives. When some good soul approached and brushed against the trip-wires, it resulted in a nasty boom. So you stay here, Naruto. I'll summon Pakkun and clear everything by myself," he commanded and was rewarded with a nod without enthusiasm.

The captain performed a second-level revealing jutsu and tossed a kunai, effectively cutting the cardinal chakra thread, and then proceeded with the summoning ritual. The dwarf bulldog combed the territory and reported back.

"I've detected five scents, Kakashi. There are many traces of blood, the little Uchiha fought someone, presumably, the old Danzo. The third one is too vague, the fourth scent belongs to that murdered woman, she reeks of burnt flesh and some toxin; the fifth scent and the cloak are Sakura's. I suddenly lost Sasuke's, stranger's and Sakura's marks in the middle of that plate, it's like they erased themselves from existence," the sleuthhound commented and shrugged.

"I see, Madara teleported them," the other signed and pinched the bridge of his nose. That wasn't the best scenario.

"Kakashi-sensei, where's Sakura?" Naruto jumped down, joining the man and the dog. "Is that a dead body?"

"Yes, and we need to transport it to Konoha morgue for autopsy," the jounin in him decided to answer the easier question.

"What about Sakura-chan?!" Naruto stepped closer to the captain.

"That's why we must return to the village in order to gather more clues and prepare a search group. Her location is currently unknown and I'm afraid that Sakura was taken prisoner by Madara and… Sasuke," Kakashi explained, sounding more serious with every syllable.

"_Or the crazy girl went with them voluntarily, that could be even worse… "_

"No! We can't defer…" his student objected vehemently. He attempted at controlling the rising tide of fear for the missing teammate. "My clones will turn all the elemental countries upside down…"

"Naruto, it would be an unnecessary waste of energy," the senior interrupted exasperatedly.

"Do you suggest that we should abandon Sakura-chan?!" the young ninja growled, infuriated, ready to grab of the captain's vest front. "I said all that bullshit to her… it's my fault, my fault! I…"

"Naruto… " Kakashi drawled, he was also the one who let the wayward kunoichi act on her own accord. As a mentor he had made the same inexcusable mistake twice. His individualistic negligence and "laissez faire" style had already cost the jounin too much. He had been awfully out of touch with his team, engrossing himself either in missions or in those second-grade novels and paying heed to the pressing problems when it was too late. "Opportunely", "maximalistic teenagers" and "relations" were not the copy-ninja's fort.

"… don't know what to do or where to look, but I'll save Sakura-chan no matter what!" Naruto vowed with his palm pressed to the hitayate. "And Sasuke... Sasuke too. Both of them". The glints of determination in his eyes then flared up and gave rise to the most radiant ultramarine flames which weren't just the play of shadows and light under the clouded heavens. The all-embracing Will of Fire was burning higher and higher inside Naruto's soul.

* * *

* from jap. "endless nightmare"

* Sasuke complimented (an unfeasible action for that one) and encouraged Sakura in chapter 36


	3. Chapter Two Part One

**Author's Note: **_I'll be laconic. This interlude has been planned to be more entertaining and less canon. Sakura contemplates the idyll of fairytales, vicissitudes of genetics and forbidden tomatoes, Sasuke experiences a fleeting remission, Madara indulges in his harmless obsession. There ought to be a "pipe" for sublimation, especially, when the antagonist is doomed to such a stressful ambition as world domination._

**Announcement: **I feel obligated to notify the readers that the pairing(s) in this story is (are) too knotty to be set in stone. I'm not considering changing the character filter, however. The story remains focused on the interaction between Sakura and Sasuke.

P.S. _And I've been hypnotized by this puzzling phrase: "In a world of nonsense, everything something is, it isn't, everything it would be wouldn't, and everything it wasn't, was." Unknown_

P.P.S. Also, I'm a tyro at writing in the genre of suspense. That is why I really appreciate any display of feedback from readers and fellow authors. Oh, and the chapter got divided into two parts.

* * *

**Chapter Two:** **Flower Reading in a Wasteland**

**Part One: Counting  
**

* * *

Girl, he bears the tiresome love for hate,

And yet, all you can do is hate your love

Which matches stubbornness of fate.

* * *

Had she been thrown from a cliff and abruptly hung up, head over heels, in midair with her insides being churned and inverted? A peculiar rocky landscape surrounded Sakura, who had been shaken and dazzled by the novel vividness but managed to find the footing and secure her balance. The adapted "convoy" had endured the spatial leap flawlessly, stabbing the kunoichi's dignity with the dagger of envy. The three of them were standing in the center of a naturally looking bare amphitheatre of a small scope. Its steep uneven roofless foundation was dotted with rectangular apertures which, most likely, led into tangled tunnels that connected different levels, including the underground premises. When compared to Orochimaru's intricate catacombs and elaborated dungeons, Madara Uchiha's "palace" resembled an isolated unpolished cloister and excelled in ascetic minimalism. The forest fence above environed the residence: apparently, the luxuriant dark green crown and the certain rise of outside temperature indicated that it was located somewhere in the southern, maybe, south-western territories. The inner "yard" appeared deserted, extraordinarily plain, but several quaint frames were scattered here and there which, at first sight, reminded Haruno of clumpy petrified skeletons. Sasuke turned sharply, crunching the stone dust underneath his soles, and departed from the scene, not gracing the others with a single word or interjection. Sakura cursorily checked up the rogue ninja with a slanting glance and noted the slight heaviness of his step and laboriously upright posture.

"The humbleness of my abode must daunt such a fair guest and I would like to apologize for any discomfort, as well as my descendant's rudeness," the host delivered diplomatically and she had to give credit to the man's shrewdness. It also figuratively strangulated Sakura that the enigmatic akatsuki divined her like a children's riddle while she couldn't even observe his facial expressions. Uchiha's virtuosic acting streamed smoothly, making the kunoichi feel self-conscious about her talentless hypocrisy. "I've neglected the necessity of cosmetic alternations due to my... busyness."

"Thank you for your kind consideration but the only accommodation I'll ask of you is a room agreeable to the medical standards," she answered in a neutral tone, folding her arms for it was still a little too chilly in the bottom disturbance of her thermoexchange could have been the unpleasant side effect of that odious genjutsu together with the "virgin" teleportation.

"You should rest before our next meeting," the baritone silkily suggested. "It'll be getting colder; unfortunately, there's nothing more to offer you than my cloak, that if…" Madara yet again manifested courteousness, exciting the kunoichi's cognitive dissonance.

"No", Sakura snubbed the equivocal proposition and subconsciously shrank back in aversion. She would never succumb to wearing the akatsukis' dishonorable "banner". Her shoulders complained about the lack of Naruto's comforting arms, draped around them. Having recovered her wits, the kunoichi rectified the indiscretion, "It's better for me to start building resistance to the rigorous weather conditions."

"As you wish. Zetsu," he preserved the tactfulness and imperiously called for another akatsuki whose upper body miraculously emerged from one of the frames.

She had encountered this "Zetsu" once and for a short period of time but his unique morphology had impressed her. The specimen could be roughly described as a hybrid between a sundew, yin yang and a humanoid, putting to shame Orochimaru's most creative guinea pigs.

"Accompany Sakura-chan to the coziest quarters in the eastern wing and kindly see to her requests."

"I still can't accept the fact that Sasori of the Red Sands hadn't been able to uproot a Konoha sapling," the black half grumbled, but his white neighbor chuckled in a reconciling manner: "Don't be too skeptical. After all, she is the second apprentice of the famed sannin."

"_Splendid. I'm in a lunatic asylum, enjoying the exotic society of three misogynic males who happen to suffer from split personality, megalomania and…" _Haruno muttered to herself.

"_**Imbecility or autism?**__" _her own symptom perked up, sarcastically referring to Uchiha junior.

"_Psychopathy," _she corrected mirthlessly.

"And I've almost forgotten to inform you about the new spherical barrier around the hideout," Madara adroitly warned the guest-captive. "It lets through only those who posses signature sharingan or a special passport. Also, the same rules apply to summoning creatures." The comment clearly implied the elementary impossibility of escaping without permission or the ability to open a portal and hop into another dimension.

"_Darn their clannish prudence!"_

In addition, Sakura would have to rack her brains for loopholes in an unfamiliar security system. The chimes in her head rang in unison that there was no such ideal as an equivalent swap in the world of intriguers: sine qua non*, one of the parties was destined to pay a higher price. That was the general rule of profit. And the odds were not in her favor. The kunoichi would live as long as she served Madara's ambitions according to his unfair terms and after that the overage tool would be discarded.

* * *

"Is there anything you need in particular, Haruno-san?" the benevolent side inquired, pausing.

She looked briefly round her lodging: a low wooden table with an oil lamp on it, a tatami, supplemented with an overlay, one discolored quilt. Sakura retained from recommending this organization hiring Yamato as an interior decorator. Not paradise isles, indeed.

"_As the saying goes, a cottage is a castle for those in love_", she smiled wryly at the stale thought and squared her shoulders. _"However that may be, must assess his current state… "_

"Yes, a well illuminated room with Sasuke Uchiha inside in one hour. And if he opposes, please, convey this oral message to him…"

"_**Frankly, Sasuke-kun, I don't give a damn,*"**_ the Inner Sakura inserted smugly.

"A prior examination is a standard requirement for any operation, especially, a transplant one. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered," Sakura packed her fret in a moderately civil formula. Uchiha could suffer a little from the wounds and haughtiness, while she would mentally prepare herself for the inevitable "reunion".

"Try not to crush carrier walls in the process," the cynical half sniffed and Zetsu exited through the floor.

Instantly, Sakura's knees slackened and the kunoichi flaccidly sagged to the tatami. The tight belts of accumulated upset and tumult had finally constricted her chest and throat, her lips quivered; behind those glossy orbs a million of tears waited to be shed. Sakura shook her head and attempted at bottling up a fit of hysteria.

"_Crying won't solve anything,_" she repeated the hardshell mantra, shoving the sobs back, willing her fingers to block the waterfalls.

Sakura's background was always average, dull and problem-free, overshadowed by her teammates' complicated past. The girl had developed a sort of an inferiority complex, witnessing all their mishaps, and being too juvenile, too green to mend those rifts. She even believed that the tragedy of her existence was the absence of an authentic tragedy. Years ago she engaged herself in a hyperbolized fairytale romance, having done her best to become the main heroine, but couldn't overcome the disparity between her and the chosen ninja of the rueful countenance. The despaired prince soon turned into an oni* that literally spouted fire and sowed lightning bolts while she played loyally the role of a maiden in distress. The boy labeled her "commonplace" and "noisy", he bluntly drew Sakura out of the narrative where she didn't belong. But it appeared that she was unusually obstinate and aimed at more than an average fairytale. From admiration for the living legend, Tsunade Senju, she gradually learnt how to be Herself and derived inspiration for her own real story, letting go the majority of her idyllic expectations and wishful thinking. But it was still difficult to remove the childish pink clouds from the horizon and that fallacious habit of "one true love".

"_Oh, so annoying. What's Sasuke to you, anyway?*" _a voice disturbed her.

Sakura could not answer Karui's question. She didn't know what Sasuke Uchiha was to Sakura Haruno anymore. His old pedestal stood vacant: the disowned idol had vanished. She opted to get rid of the stand too.

"… _he really loves you… Sasuke causes Naruto great pain… and he suffers for your sake too… everyone relies on Naruto too much,*" _Sai could be merciless.

And, for the time being, she neither wanted to contemplate her laminated relationship with the blond friend and its abstruse character. Reproaching herself would prove counterproductive at the moment. She had to abstract from all the personal drama and ratiocinate. It was only clever to coordinate her actions so that the kunoichi could gather maximum intelligence and then improvise pursuant to circumstances. For lack of a sedative the chunin patted her cheeks and inhaled. Then she exhaled, rolled up her shots and unreeled the milky stretch ribbons from her thighs.

"_For the present I'll consider him my patient. And treat Sasuke accordingly," _Sakura signed, straightening and extending the rag paper repository "scrolls".

The first one served as a capacious medicine chest. She poked her chakra fueled fingertip at three selected symbols and retrieved the cropped up pills. The brown one was a combination of easily assimilated proteins and contained, in those glued granules, all twenty amino acids. The turquoise pill had a sufficient amount of compressed chakra within the capsule. And the third pill, purple one, stimulated the blood plasma synthesis, thus replenishing its loss in a short time interval. The medic nin applied this traditional set whenever the certain reckless "S-missionaholic" jounin abused his organism and quickly needed to return to his combat readiness. Its efficiency was already verified on one dojutsu master; thereby her special magical triad, most probably, would facilitate Uchiha's case too. Nevertheless, she was aware of a crucial chasm between the grafted and the inherent sharingan.

Sakura scowled and focused on the second scroll in which she had stored a mini-library of medical literature and writing materials. She browsed through the weighty manual on ophthalmology and optometry in order to refresh her knowledge on the neuron specifics, the kunoichi scrutinized the miserly dojutsu section: there were five occult-sounding lines about rinnegan and scarcely two pages about sharingan and byakugan. Sakura had read that practically ancient article multitude times during her training, but reverted to it once again, trying to decant some useful clues from the opaque controversial description which was devoted mostly to historical routine and soaked in mysticism. Both the clans obviously preserved, tooth-and-nail, their inner secrets from the outsiders. The Uchiha family, which was less in numbers, seemed to have been even more segregated from Konohakagure and shrouded in arcane speculations. Due to the carnage of almost ten years' prescription, the deaths of every private physician who assisted the clan, and the deletion or loss of the documents the probability of acquiring additional data was nullified. The most scientific version concerning the origin and mechanism of sharingan asserted that the kekkei genkai had derived from byakugan in the course of a subitaneous complex recessive mutation in nerve cells and caused the development of diverse exceptional chakra-based psychic abilities, frequently attended with dopamine imbalance, followed by mental instability. Also, the stress factors, for example, emotional shock, usually had a strong influence on the gene expression. Dot.

Sakura's frown deepened when she remembered those dreadful rumors which alleged that Uchiha were "cannibals" and stooped to the murder of the closest person in order to appease their bloodlust. Yet, Kakashi didn't kill thousand innocent infants to achieve mangekyo sharingan. Still, in spite of Haruno's reasonableness, she perceived Obito's gift as a gluttonous parasite because it sucked out tremendous portions of chakra and constantly overloaded its owner's body, rendering it paralyzed. Her captain's sharingan could not be deactivated and without the hitayate, protecting Kakashi's left eye, and tedious regenerative procedures, his retina, choroid, and optical nerve would have deteriorated ages ago. Tsunade never let anyone besides herself deal with those side effects, so Sakura just stumbled upon a single opportunity to "pilfer" miserable bits of knowledge from overhearing her master's findings. The medic nin surmised that the visual system was the most amenable to damages because it was the epicenter of chakra circuit abnormal deformity, involving a diffuse lesion and a major dysfunction; the sharingan blindness, or Uchiha's curse, could either be the result of autoimmune aggression (for the purpose of chakra economy) or hereditary predisposition, related to the mutation. Sakura wondered whose eyes exactly were supposed to serve as transplants. She expected to obtain a much more perspicuous notion from questioning Madara and Sasuke's examination.

Her mind was swarmed with dozens of important issues, but in fifteen minutes she would have to see the so-called patient. The kunoichi fastened her quite tousled hair with a star-shaped pin and switched to much more trivial objectives.

* * *

Under white Zetsu's surveillance she pushed the heavy steel door and entered the room alone, squinting over the poignant fluorescent light of the lamps that resembled glazed snails, screwed to the ceiling. There, in a remote corner of an idle laboratory, Sakura discerned the familiar silhouette in a fresh set of garments. The kunoichi approached him, radiating superiority and dismal, receiving more evidence to the admonition of her professional flair. "Sasuke", who was squatting, reclining on the beige board, didn't even budge or hostilely utter the scissored "Sa-ku-ra" to acknowledge her presence.

"_Ludicrous…"_ she huffed, exasperated. "_Who's testing whom!?_"

"I'll let you know that Naruto's shadow clones are nearly impeccable replicas, so I pride myself upon being able to distinguish a copy from the original when the sneaky knucklehead attempts at using the puny trick on me to curtail his hospital stay," the medic nin commented aloud. Firstly, no shadow clone could survive her "friendly punch". Secondly, her teammate and captain exploited their duplicates on a regular basis, so she had learnt to sense, at one meter distance, the subtle differences, consisting in the slightly altered ratio between their corporal and spirit energies.

"Great minds think alike?" she mocked Uchiha's failed precaution.

"Do not put me in the same holder with that dolt," another similar figure "separated" itself from the lateral wall and gloriously paraded towards the bench.

Maybe, she should have preferred his catatonic double. The said facsimile was wordlessly dismissed.

"_Indeed, Naruto has become a mere hero of Konoha, while you've been awarded with the title of an international criminal. What an outstanding achievement…_" Sakura mentally clapped and turned to the "patient", casting an imperturbable mask on her face. The grimace of disdain was hidden behind the unnaturally frozen saccharine expression. That social retard, Sai, would have been "ecstatically splashing ink" regarding her act of actually imitating his antics. She was mildly surprised that aggressive Uchiha hadn't tried to smother her from behind for the insolent opinion.

"**I bet, Zetsu asked Sasuke to avoid damaging propriety too," **the Inner snickered.

"The more you cooperate, the quicker we will part, Ucniha-san," Sakura said, emphasizing the technical framework of their interaction. There were no signs of disagreement and she continued the routine: "First of all, I'm going to treat your injuries and analyze the overall health condition. Then I'll go over your eye problem. But before I commence, you need to take the medicine I prepared."

"_Surely, he'll refuse point-blank. Poisoned kunai is a solid con. Wouldn't it be easier to persuade a three-year-old to gulp a whole cup of castor oil?"_ she muttered, groping for the envelope with the pills, fastened to the buckle of her skirt.

But after Sakura presented it and explained the effects, he, to her utter astonishment, tacitly reached out for the pills, not showing any visible doubt about their benefit. She watched Sasuke chew and swallow without even wrinkling his nose because of the nauseating flavor. No one before, besides omnivorous Uzumaki, could boast of such a feat. Staring at his laryngeal prominence, she suspected him of either being drugged or immune to nastiness due to Orochimaru's dietary supplements. Her inquisitive glance travelled lower, to the broad plateau of his half-covered chest: "black and blue" stood out against his normal complexion, making it discrete. She assumed that he had washed or wiped off the most profuse blood stains. Sasuke's strenuous unbent pose and slow respiration were the evident flags of fractured ribs.

"Now, please, remove your uwagi and that… cord," Sakura instructed in a polite tone, devoid of any embarrassment.

Even if his zubon-like-pants would fall down without the waistband, it was unfitting for a medic nin to be shy about anything physical: she had seen if not a mountain, then a hill of various male torsos. She didn't buy his docility when he began stripping down to the thighs in front of her. According to protocol she should have helped him to disrobe, but Sakura was dealing with Sasuke of the Uchiha clan, the self-sufficient one, who always claimed that he could manage all by himself. So she squashed the altruistic urge and observed his movements, decelerated by a dull ache and episodes of pangs in his ribcage.

Sakura inspected thoroughly every inch of the exposed flesh. The medic nin had detected two extensive hematomas: one was situated on his left side; the other spread just below the shoulder-blades; disregarding two dozens of bruises and scratches. His grave appearance disturbed the former comrade with the recollection of her palms, floating above the islands of tanned skin and scarlet continents of scalds. Sasuke's epidermis was not flawless either, but Naruto's burns had been horrific as if her teammate had dived into a pot of boiling ramen broth.

"_Sasuke's like a reverse image. There is evident contrast, but there are also kindred lines… I should stop comparing them… it muddles up my social perception," _she arrested her train of thoughts which was shaping Haruno's understanding of the person opposite her into something more equivocal.

The medic explored him higher, feeling the surge of cool agitation along her spine. She had to blink twice at the unblemished skin near the base of his neck.

Gone was the putrid key kink of all her nightmares, that mercilessly hurled the girl back, in the perilous maze of the Death Forest, and awkward sensual dream cycles, in which Sakura eagerly pressed her lips to the fresh punctures and sucked out the venom. Not only had the cavern of her mouth flared up from the frenetic act of salvation… Sakura never spitted the venenate saliva out. Sometimes, she waked up abruptly, at the crack of dawn, being entwined with the moist sheets and swaddled in the sensation of befogged arousal and agonizing emptiness. Those oneiric fantasies depleted little by little, replaced by the vain oblivion and fearing for the blond jinchuuriki's life. Recently, she rarely dreamt of the stray avenger, but when she did, a pillow could not soak up all her melancholy and muffled wails. Once, one of those twilight sasukes chased after her, like an enraged beast, incinerating her with his sharingan, tearing her apart, reiterating: "Annoying, annoying, annoying…" Then, Sakura dined at Ichiraku Ramen with the most promising ninja and the best cushion-man stitched her confidence back together. Like Naruto, she waved away the imaginary horrors, repelling them with a bright hopeful, yet taut smile. However, her paroniria persisted and attained frightful material forms. The Cursed Seal ceased to spoil him, but Sasuke had absorbed too much toxin, the bane of the oppressive world, and started secreting his own. Even if she kissed him endlessly, her passionate devotion would not reverse the damnation and awake Sasuke from his onerous daymare. Sakura was a healer, not a magician.

Her index finger hovered above the spot, probing the outer tissues with the bluish laser. It was certain: somehow the seal got cleansed. In the past she wanted to be the one who'd vanquish that enemy.

"When?" she failed to evade the blasted question. It was merely a whisper of the little Sakura, a gust of self-accusation and sour futility, but he heard the plea and retaliated.

"Itachi," Sasuke slapped the ex-teammate with the truth she couldn't grasp, it just deepened the scar of her memory. The name was hurting them both in a different way.

"I see... A few tests are required," Sakura changed the malign flow, straightening herself. The medic was concerned about the state of his ophthalmic nerve and surrounding vessels. "Please, do not move."

She'd picked up one of the scrolls to extract the pen light and gloves but had to catch a falling piece of paper with a column of glyphs.

"Cheer up, Ugly! Uchiha is even more dickless than Dickless!"

She would have laughed if it weren't for the smoldering jet which followed intently the arrangements. Thankfully, with his deteriorating sight he could hardly read Sai's calligraphic insult. Sakura turned back to the patient, gently lifted his left eyelid and directed the ray at the patient's dilated pupil. He recoiled from the light and screwed up his watering eyes. She had expected the photophobic reaction and broken capillaries. It was the typical symptom of continuous sharingan overuse.

"Sharp pain, migraines?" the medic asked, putting away the instrument.

Uchiha nodded and opened his eyes once again.

"You don't have to strain yourself, you can fully close them for now," she advised but he was unwilling to listen and chose to glare at the medic through slits.

Frankly speaking, when she really looked into Sasuke's orbs, Sakura almost got repelled by the pitch black. They say that eyes are the windows to souls. His were guarded whether shut or not.

Sakura shifted behind him and laid her hands on his occiput, covering it with a diagnostic energy net. It opalesced from turquoise to a rich vermillion hue, indicating the conditions of head tenketsu.

"Stay still. You may be overcome by drowsiness soon," she let him know beforehand about the accompanying effect of the procedure.

"Hn."

The medic secured the net and expanded an extremely sensitive healing screen over it, trying to restore the balance in chakra and blood supply for the most damaged fields. The silence disturbed her concentration. Sakura had a habit of chatting with her patients. Communication strengthened the temporal bond and lowered the defenses thus making her interference more efficient.

"What was that red-head's name?"

"Why would you care? She's not someone from Konoha," he answered after a pause. She felt a slight disturbance in his brain waves.

"True, not my comrade. But even enemies do not deserve nameless gravestones," she retorted, offended by the biting mention of her allegiance.

"Hn. No need to waste one on that woman," Sasuke muttered.

Sakura flinched from the casual tone of his speech. He did associate with the cats and snakes, the thankless creatures which, according to popular belief, did not pay homage to Buddha by attending his funeral. Did Sasuke actually become a heartless beast? Would he have finished her off at some point of his power pursuit if Sakura had persisted in going with him three years ago.

"You've changed so much… Sasuke," she stated, cursing the thought of initiating this doomed conversation in the first place.

"And you… haven't?" Uchiha hinted at her evident hypocrisy.

What was left of him, the most prominent rookie among the graduates of their year, and what was left of her, the enamoured immature genin who bungled her self-presentation during the introduction and used to "sasuke-kun" not only out of reflex? Just familiar strangers?

"_We all have… not exactly kids anymore, chasing after golden-colored butterflies. We had captured our dreams by crushing their wings, stupefied those honey illusions with the deadly ether of reality and pinned them securely to the wry wall of attainments._"

They were poisoned by the time itself. And nobody could heal that fatal pandemia.

* * *

_* from lat. "an indispensable condition"_

_* an altered phrase from "Gone with the wind"_

_* from jap. "demon"_

_* Karui shouts at Sakura in chapter 453 when the latter defends Uchiha _

_* parts of Sai's speech concerning Naruto's feelings from chapter 458_


	4. A Special Interlude

_*twelve hours after Sakura's disappearance*_

* * *

"Cco…cold… Sui… Suigetsu, you hydrocephalic id…idiot, can't you even watch over the camp…pp..fire?!" Karin stammered hoarsely, drifting in the haze of freezing numbness.

Then all of a sudden she sensed it… something amiss, a foreign mediocre aura, impending over her. The maroon eyelashes fluttered and she jumped up like a half-iced frog, awakened from its anabiosis slumber. Karin saw a blurred light figure that was holding a sharp stick just above her midsection… her naked midsection, scarcely covered with a sheet.

"Sexual maniac!" the jar scream resonated from the white tile.

The middle-aged autopsist blinked, the scalpel slipped from the flabby glowed hand on the metallic table with a clang. Then her assailant blanched, blending with his apron, and fainted.

"_Have I managed to scare off a death ripper?"_ Karin remembered the vague moments of her lousy end, while automatically trying to grope for the glasses. In vain.

"Where the heck am I? The purgatory? And why does it resemble Orochimaru's favorite anatomic theatre?" she exclaimed and winced from the cramps, the sickening smell of chloroform, and the taste of bile on her tongue.

_"The pain and these overwhelming sensations…"_

"Welcome to temporal Konohakagure morgue…" a newly-arrived breathless brunette humorlessly greeted the formerly dead kunoichi.

"Konohaka… morgue? You… your ignoramus… nearly dissected me!" Karin screeched and pointed accusingly at the unconscious pseudodevil.

"Care to explain how come you are alive?" the woman calmly inquired and promptly bent to bring her colleague round.

Karin decided that the stranger's contained pitch, rich violet curves under eyes and solemn self-discipline indicated the tricky position of an overstressed assistant in the midst of urgent executive restoration. It was way too quizzically miraculous and droll to regain consciousness as a quasi cadaver in the almost demolished ninja village. She was surrounded by its tenacious people who should have been buried beneath the ruins but had persisted. What a hellish connection!

_"It must have been Sasuke-kun's antidotal saliva I received from all those bites, my special chakra… and the opportunely applied gijishibo* no jutsu… but why did he spare me?" _the ginger-haired sensor confusedly mused to herself. _"Naah… that certainly wasn't a lofty act of love! However, I should thank, just this once, my messed-up karma."_

"I may, if you provide me with decent clothes and a pair of spectacles," she cheekily requested in exchange, wrapping herself in the thin cotton.

"And a nourishing meal would be extra nice too," Karin added thoughtfully after her disregarded stomach had grumbled. She was going to snatch at the gossamery thread of gods and climb up to a second (or was it third?) beginning.

* * *

_* from jap. "sham death"_


End file.
